i think a lot of aviation enthusiasts are aware of the great airline exodus from KUL in the late 90s , starting with LH ( coming back ! ) , but more importantly, BA , QF and NW. Unlike Bangkok and Singapore, for such a large air-hub, the dearth of Western carriers is shocking !

What do you think are the reasons for KUL not being able to appeal to Western carriers , besides the usual response that BKK and SIN are stealing all the traffic ?

BTW, is Kuala Lumpur the only major ex-British colony that BA/QF has "unceremoniously" dropped ?

KUL is doing pretty good for summer 2004. Lufthansa is reinstating its flights to KUL; Garuda, Air China, Air Mauritius and Qatar Air are going to increase their flights to KUL. Not too sure if there are any other airlines that are planning to return or increase their flights to KUL though.

From my last visits to KUL (Jan21-Feb1) - it seems to be doing just fine. Compared to my last trips to Munich a month previously - MUC (oddly - both KUL and MUC (LH) terminals seem to look quite alike) seemed much quieter than KUL usually is - which surprised me.

As Odie mentioned many other airlines have commenced flights into KL and although many major European and no US carrier currently fly there it certainly has quite a few airlines who seem quite happy flying there. Nevertheless, the exodus has actually given MAS quite a lot of good business in their absence and made the airline even stronger than pre-KLIA.

so guess it is still a hub - perhaps in LGW's words - a hub without the hubbub...

Airbus lover : Yup! thanks i think i vaguely remembered reading the thread but got quite put off when it started getting political and n-a-s-t-y. it was so looong ago though ..

yups Mas777 , it's definitely a small hub in its own right .. after all MH is rising to the ranks of world-supremacy and like BKK and SIN , it is a popular choice on the Kangaroo route.

i guess it's the matter of good diplomatic ties. diplomatic ties between SIN and many western countries have been historically and currently very rock-solid, so SIN is generally very hot amongst the British/Aussie crowd. on the other hand, KUL is popular amongst the Muslim countries, so they see a totally different crowd altogether.

BKK is like a phenomenon ! i think it's the most popular asian city worldwide in terms of connectivity. i think even tokyo doesn't see as many airlines as they do. If BKK collapses as a hub, i think SIN will as well , coz' many of the flights into SIN are made viable only via BKK. In that sense, we are kind of a spoke to BKK's hub.